An interview with children's picture book illustrator Oliver Jeffers

Forming a picture of an author from his words is fun, inevitable and extremely likely to be off-beam.

For example, I imagined Oliver Jeffers to be in his sixties, with a grey beard and a predilection for fisherman’s jumpers, yet the only part of this phantasmagorical equation that turns out to be accurate is the beard, which is far from grey. The man in front of me looks more like Jamie Dornan than some cosy old man who writes children’s books.

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Not that Jeffers, 39, likes to call them children’s books. “Really good stories surpass boundaries of age,” he explains. “I have never really stopped to think, ‘What is it that children want to hear in a story?’ and then tailored what I do towards that. It’s more about telling good stories that satisfy my own sense of curiosity.”

Jeffers has sold over seven million copies worldwide, although no sales figures, nor any of his myriad literary awards, can adequately convey the delightfulness of his books, or the spell they seem to cast on children.

It was 2005’s Lost And Found that first wove its magic on my elder child: as a toddler, she would have nothing else at bedtime. Most parents would attest to the dreariness of reading the same story over and over again, but Lost And Found had me in thrall as much as her. True, a tale about a boy and a penguin isn’t exactly up there with The Girl On The Train in the suspense stakes, but what makes the book special is its sparsity.

“There’s a lot of empty space in the book, both in the pace in which it’s told and in the art itself, and I think it allows people room to place themselves in the story, so there’s a bit of empathy in there,” says Jeffers. “There’s a stillness to it. The penguin character actually doesn’t do very much, so people get to project onto the penguin what they want him to be.”

Did he know it would be so successful? “I had a feeling when I was doing it.” He smiles. “Although I don’t have any interest in picking apart and figuring out what’s popular and what’s not, because it might change the way I make things. It’s got to feel right for the right reasons, and be authentic in that sense.”

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Matt Holyoak

That adults love his books as much as children isn't surprising.

“They always come up [at events] a little bit embarrassed, saying, ‘You know, I’m here with no children...’” Jeffers laughs. “It’s happening more and more often, but the level of embarrassment is starting to drop, which is good, because that means that it’s becoming okay to embrace the fact that here are a bunch of adults who enjoy picture books.”

There is much in Jeffers’ oeuvre for adults who don’t enjoy picture books, too. While he has provided illustrations for Kinder Eggs and Starbucks, designed album covers and worked on a video for U2, it’s art which is his passion, and he exhibits often.

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Next month he launches a small range of merchandise in Colette, the chic Paris boutique that every self-respecting fashion designer would sell a kidney to be stocked in.

“I’ve got myself into a position where I only do the projects I want to now. I’m not a gun for hire,” he says with some relief.

He works out of a Brooklyn studio, with his wife Suzanne functioning as his manager. They met in their native Northern Ireland, moving to Brooklyn nine years ago because “It’s New York – who doesn’t want to give it a go?” His wife was reluctant at first, so they came initially for six months. “That turned into a year, then into three, and the next thing we’re renewing our visa, getting a green card, and now we have a son who’s an American citizen.”

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Their son Harland is 17 months old and has turned Jeffers’ life upside down in the nicest, most predictable ways. “On the practical side, I no longer work at weekends or evenings, which used to be my most productive time. And I try to keep travelling to a minimum.”

Has it changed the way he writes and illustrates his books? “It’s too hard to tell because since he’s been born, I’ve been focusing on fine-art projects – conceptual paintings and whatnot. Inevitably, it’s going to have an effect because I’m talking to him and telling him stories and reading other people’s stories to him at bedtime. I was out of the loop for a long time with picture books, just doing what I do. I have the pleasure of working with a few wonderful publishers, and when he was born they all sent the classic books they publish, so there were a load of books I was aware of but I had never actually read. So that’s been interesting.”

So far, he has largely resisted featuring Harland on his stylishly curated Instagram account (760,000 followers and rising), a decision he calls “a very conscious thing. It’s not like I’m totally hiding him away, but I also don’t want to use him as fodder”.

Brooklyn-based as he is, Jeffers still feels wholly Northern Irish. He was born in Australia, but his parents moved back to their native Belfast when he was still a baby, and he remained in the area as a student, graduating from Ulster University in 2001.

He says it’s only latterly that he realised his upbringing has had a huge impact on his chosen career. “One, the way in which my sense of humour has taken shape, because there’s certainly a darkness to the humour in Northern Ireland which is fairly unique, and it’s a brilliant thing. But being surrounded by good storytellers, the essence of judging what a good story is and how to tell it and how to time it and how to structure it starts seeping into you when you’re a kid. Granny’s in the kitchen, uncle’s in the pub, other kids in the playground... everybody telling a yarn.”

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His mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when he was two, and passed away 16 years ago. He has barely any memories of her walking.

“I always remember her as full of life. People joked our house was like Grand Central Station. People would come in and out, and it revolved around her bedroom, which we moved to the ground floor. She was such a big energy that she drew everybody to her.”

Did he inherit his artistic skills from his mother? “Definitely. My dad jokes that he can’t draw a straight line, and I like to remind him that actually, a straight line is one of the hardest things you can draw,” he says laughing.

Last Christmas, the family went back to Belfast. “I really thought my wife would want to move back,” he says. “I was sort of preparing for that, but the funny thing is that she was fine to go back to Brooklyn, and I was the one who was like, ‘This is where all of his [Harland’s] family are.’

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This Christmas, wherever they spend it, food is sure to be centre stage. Jeffers has too many projects on the go – and way too much of an active mind – to be much good at relaxing, but says he does like to kick back by cooking, and recounts another Brooklyn Christmas when he and Suzanne (“we make a good tag team”) cooked a turkey in the borrowed oven of his upstairs neighbour while simultaneously barbecuing a ham outside. I suggest that it must have been chilly, barbecuing in the snow. “Just put a coat on!” he exclaims.

Which book of his would he urge novices to start with? “For small children, probably How To Catch A Star or Lost And Found are good ones. The colour palette seems to appeal to young kids.” As a child, he wasn’t a big reader himself (“I was much more interested in drawing, or being outside, digging holes”), but loved The Bad-Tempered Ladybird, the picture book by Eric Carle. He also loved Roald Dahl.

I mention how surprising it is, as a new parent, to realise that children have a fascination with the macabre. He agrees. “Think of the Brothers Grimm stories, and Hans Christian Andersen. They’re all slightly dark and scary, and that’s okay. Roald Dahl is a classic example. Kids love a little bit of mischievousness, and a little bit of feeling scared, but then secretly knowing that they’re okay.

Not everything is sweetness and light. I think it was Neil Gaiman who said that scary stories are a good preparation for real life. The real world can be scary. Reading scary stories is not a bad way to familiarise yourself with what that feels like – especially in the safety of your own bedroom.”

Does he still pinch himself that he gets to do this for a living? "Ha. Yes and No. I don’t really look backwards or weigh up what I’ve accomplished – that’s a dangerous thing to do. I tend to look forward.” As for the future, “I think of nothing but!” He laughs. “In 10 years’ time, I’d like to be doing the same thing as I’m doing now. But maybe a bit less of it,” he adds.

While Harland is his priority (“Family and home first – work after,” he says of his post-fatherhood approach) Jeffers loves his job(s) too much to remain anything other than prolific.

Asked about the most satisfying parts of his career, he says, “They happen in different ways. With painting, it can be a single brushstroke which fixes everything. Or it can be the sense of joy and humble pride that you get whenever you see other people enjoying your work – being in a bookshop and seeing a kid pick up your book, sit down on the floor and read it, and they have no idea that you’re there. Watching people enjoy what you create is a pretty special part of it.”

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